The education secretary, Charles Clarke, has demanded an urgent explanation from the government's exam watchdog for its plans for a "dumbed-down" Shakespeare test for 14-year-olds, he revealed yesterday.
English teachers have complained that the new English test, revamped by the qualifications and curriculum authority and due to be sat for the first time in May by an estimated 600,000 youngsters, requires little understanding of the work of William Shakespeare.
Yesterday Mr Clarke underlined the importance of English - and "the creative and exciting teaching" of Shakespeare - as he announced further plans to expand the government's specialist schools programme at a London conference on the next stage of its reforms to secondary schools.
A humanities specialism will allow schools to specialise in English, geography and history, along with two further new specialisms in music and one for rural schools. But plans to award schools with a new category of "advanced" specialist status have been scrapped after headteachers complained it would encourage competition rather than collaboration. Instead, the Department for Education and Skills has devised a new label for this group of schools - the "leading edge programme".
Mr Clarke revealed he had asked the QCA to justify its plans for the new key stage three English test following a storm of criticism from secondary school teachers. Shakespeare is one of three papers taken in English, and will consist of a section on reading and one on writing.
But only the reading section - worth 18 out of 38 marks and based on text from two scenes from Henry V, Twelfth Night or Macbeth - requires any understanding of Shakespeare. The writing element, which tests youngsters' understanding of grammar, attracts 20 marks, but teachers say the subject matter is irrelevant and claim the study of literature is being "dumbed down".
Asked whether he was concerned about the format of the new test, Mr Clarke said: "I've asked for some reports on that. I am concerned about the stories I read over the weekend but I can't say any more until I've heard back."
Mr Clarke's 11th-hour intervention is embarrassing for the QCA, which on Friday insisted that the new test was "rigorous".
Bethan Marshall, lecturer at Kings College, London, and a member of the London Association for the Teaching of English, said: "I would be very encouraged that they are taking the matter seriously. But the whole English test - not just the Shakespeare part - is worrying for English teachers."
Yesterday Mr Clarke also invited independent schools to share their expertise with the state sector, as part of the new leading edge programme, which could entitle them to up to £60,000 from the taxpayer. And he said he would welcome bids to set up new secondary schools, which might trigger interest from groups of parents.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, welcomed Mr Clarke's remarks. "Today's speech marks a new, more inclusive, phase in the government's policy on secondary schools," he said.
But the shadow education secretary, Damian Green, said: "Beneath some high-flown rhetoric the government is fiddling at the edges rather than creating real reform. Every school should be given much more freedom to choose its own path to success instead of fitting into a ministerial straitjacket."
